Fal. The Windsor bell hath struck twelve; the minute draws on. Now, the hot-blooded gods assist me! Remember, Jove, thou wast a bull for thy Europa; love set on thy horns. O powerful love! that, in some respects, makes a beast a man; in some other, a man a beast. You were also, Jupiter, a swan for the love of Leda; O omnipotent love! how near the god drew to the complexion of a goose! A fault done first in the form of a beast; O Jove, a beastly fault! and then another fault in the semblance of a fowl: think on t, Jove; a foul fault! When gods have hot backs, what shall poor men do? For me, I am here a Windsor stag; and the fattest, I think, i the forest: send me a cool rut-time, Jove, or who can blame me to piss my tallow? Who comes here? my doe?

Fal. My doe with the black scut! Let the sky rain potatoes; let it thunder to the tune of Green Sleeves; hail kissing-comfits and snow eringoes; let there come a tempest of provocation, I will shelter me here. [Embracing her.

Mrs. Ford. Mistress Page is come with me, sweetheart.

Fal. Divide me like a bribd buck, each a haunch: I will keep my sides to myself, my shoulders for the fellow of this walk, and my horns I bequeath your husbands. Am I a woodman, ha? Speak I like Herne the hunter? Why, now is Cupid a child of conscience; he makes restitution. As I am a true spirit, welcome! [Noise within.

During this song, the Fairies pinch FALSTAFF. DOCTOR CAIUScomes one way, and steals away a Fairy in green; SLENDERanother way, and takes off a Fairy in white; and FENTONcomes, and steals away ANNE PAGE.A noise of hunting is heard within. The Fairies run away. FALSTAFFpulls off his bucks head, and rises.

Ford. Now sir, whos a cuckold now? Master Brook, Falstaffs a knave, a cuckoldly knave; here are his horns, Master Brook: and, Master Brook, he hath enjoyed nothing of Fords but his buck-basket, his cudgel, and twenty pounds of money, which must be paid too, Master Brook; his horses are arrested for it, Master Brook.

Mrs. Ford. Sir John, we have had ill luck; we could never meet. I will never take you for my love again, but I will always count you my deer.

Fal. I do begin to perceive that I am made an ass.

Ford. Ay, and an ox too; both the proofs are extant.

Fal. And these are not fairies? I was three or four times in the thought they were not fairies; and yet the guiltiness of my mind, the sudden surprise of my powers, drove the grossness of the foppery into a received belief, in despite of the teeth of all rime and reason, that they were fairies. See now how wit may be made a Jack-a-lent, when tis upon ill employment!

Eva. Sir John Falstaff, serve Got, and leave your desires, and fairies will not pinse you.

Ford. I will never mistrust my wife again, till thou art able to woo her in good English.

Fal. Have I laid my brain in the sun and dried it, that it wants matter to prevent so gross oer-reaching as this? Am I ridden with a Welsh goat too? shall I have a coxcomb of frize? Tis time I were choked with a piece of toasted cheese.

Fal. Seese and putter! have I lived to stand at the taunt of one that makes fritters of English? This is enough to be the decay of lust and late walking through the realm.

Mrs. Page. Why, Sir John, do you think, though we would have thrust virtue out of our hearts by the head and shoulders, and have given ourselves without scruple to hell, that ever the devil could have made you our delight?

Ford. Marry, sir, well bring you to Windsor, to one Master Brook, that you have cozened of money, to whom you should have been a pander: over and above that you have suffered, I think, to repay that money will be a biting affliction.

Mrs. Ford. Nay, husband, let that go to make amends;

Forgive that sum, and so well all be friends.

Ford. Well, heres my hand: all is forgiven at last.

Page. Yet be cheerful, knight: thou shalt eat a posset to-night at my house; where I will desire thee to laugh at my wife, that now laughs at thee. Tell her, Master Slender hath married her daughter.

Slen. I came yonder at Eton to marry Mistress Anne Page, and shes a great lubberly boy: if it had not been i the church, I would have swinged him, or he should have swinged me. If I did not think it had been Anne Page, would I might never stir! and tis a postmasters boy.

Page. Upon my life, then, you took the wrong.

Slen. What need you tell me that? I think so, when I took a boy for a girl. If I had been married to him, for all he was in womans apparel, I would not have had him.

Page. Why, this is your own folly. Did not I tell you how you should know my daughter by her garments?